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Thomas Hancock
Dr. Thomas Hancock (1783 - 6 April 1849) was an English poet and physician.Moore, 275. Life Hancock was born in 1783 to Quaker parents in the south of Co. Antrim, Ireland. He was educated at Ackford, Yorkshire, was apprenticed to a surgeon at Waterford, and graduated M.D. at Edinburgh 26 June 1809. His thesis was De Morbis Epidemicis, a subject in which he was interested throughout his life. He became a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London 26 June 1809, and began practice in London, living in Finsbury Square. He attained considerable practice, and was elected physician to the City and Finsbury dispensaries. In 1810 he contributed some articles on lunatic asylums to the Belfast Monthly Magazine. His first publications were poetical works published anonymously: An Elegy Supposed to be Written on a Field of Battle, 1818, and The Law of Mercy: A poetical essay on the punishment of death. In 1821 he published Researches into the Laws and Phenomena of Pestilence, including a medical sketch and review of the Plague of London in 1665 and Remarks on Quarantine, an enlargement of an address he delivered to the Medical Society of London in 1820, which contains much information on epidemics. In 1824 he published an Essay on Instinct and its Physical and Moral Relations, in which he criticises the flippant remarks of Lawrence the surgeon on the Creation, and states clearly the views on instinct which were general before the time of Darwin. His next book appeared in 1825, The Principles of Peace exemplified in the Conduct of the Society of Friends in Ireland during the Rebellion of the year 1798, and has the most lasting value of all his works. Of the many histories of that rebellion this, based entirely upon the statements of eye-witnesses, gives the clearest view of the unsettled, varied, and ignorant notions of the great mass of the insurgents. He was an admirer of Locke, and prized very highly a beautiful little manuscript in Locke's handwriting which he possessed. He edited in 1828 'Discourses,' translated from Nicole's Essays by John Locke. In 1832 he published The Laws and Progress of the Epidemic Cholera, having shortly before removed to Liverpool, where in 1835 his last work appeared, A Defence of the Doctrines of Immediate Revelation and Universal Saving Light, in reply to some remarks contained in a work entitled " A Beacon to the Society of Friends". His works show him to have been a man of extensive reading and sound sense. In 1838 he left Liverpool and settled in Lisburn, where he lived until his death, from heart disease, in 1849 at age 66. Publications Poetry *''Elegy: Supposed to be written on a field of battle. London: John & Arthur Arch, 1818. *''The Law of Mercy: A poetical essay on the punishment of death. London: John & Arthur Arch, 1819. Non-fiction *''Researches into the Laws and Phenomena of Pestilence: Including a medical sketch and review of the plague of London, in 1665''. London: William Phillips, 1821. *''Essay on Instinct, and its Physical and Moral Relations''. London: William Phillips, 1824. *''The Principles of Peace: Exemplified in the conduct of the Society of Friends in Ireland, during the rebellion of the year 1798''. London: William Philips, 1825; Boston: American Peace Society, 1843; New York: Garland, 1974. *''An Address, Delivered at the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace''. London: Hatchard, 1828. *''A Defence of the Doctrines of Immediate Revelation and Universal and Saving Light''. Liverpool: Thomas Hodgson / London: Darton & Harvey, 1835. *''Are the West India Colonies to be Preserved? A few plain facts''. 1840. Translated *''Discourses: Translated from Nicole's 'Essays by John Locke', with important variations from the original French''. London: Harvey & Darton, 1828. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Thomas Hancock 1848, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, July 5, 2016. See also *List of British poets References * Notes External links ;About *Dr. Thomas Hancock (1783-1849) at English Poetry, 1579-1830 * Hancock, Thomas (1783-1849) Category:1783 births Category:1849 deaths Category:19th-century poets Category:English physicians Category:English poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:People from County Antrim